Good Enough to Trust (Good Enough, Book 2 - Going Back) (6 page)

“Some battle.”
They were proper scars, not just from a stumble and I didn’t like that I didn’t
know about them.

“Forget it.” He
was still holding my wrist, but when I wriggled he suddenly seemed to realise
what he was doing, and he slowly uncurled his fingers. But his hand stayed
there and I didn’t know whether it was to stop me touching his scars, or
because he didn’t want to break the contact between us. “Do you know what
you’re doing, Soph?”

“Not really. Do we
ever?”

The corner of his
mouth twitched. “Guess not. I’ll give you a lift back, shall I?” My gaze
drifted back up to the scar, trouble was now I’d noticed it I couldn’t stop
looking, and wondering. There was just something about the way Mr. Laid-back
had reacted that set those instincts prickling inside me, except my instincts
were sometimes way off the mark.

“Stop it, Soph.”
He hadn’t missed my stares, which I suppose he wouldn’t. He was on his feet,
holding out a hand and pulling me abruptly up before dropping my hand like it
was a hot coal, and heading over to the Landrover. Is that what every man in
Cornwall drove?

I hadn’t said it
out loud, I was sure I hadn’t.

“Comes with the
job.” He shoved it into gear with his normal confidence and we were trundling
up the steep hill before I’d got my seatbelt on. Yeah, his normal confidence.
Much as I wanted to distance myself from Ollie and the past, it was all too
normal. I knew him too well. And he knew me.

“So what’s the
job?”

“Helping out the
grockles.” He gave a short laugh, minus the humour and threw me a glance that
dared me to make a joke of it.

“Emmets.”

“Sorry?” He shoved
the Landrover down a gear as we hit the steeper section.

“Emmets. Grockles
are what they say in Devon.”

“Ah, Miss
Know-It-All as normal, some things don’t change, I see.” The corner of his
mouth tipped up though, and then he reached over and ruffled the hair on the
top of my head, leaving me strangely pleased with myself.

“You cart people
up and down to the castle?” I remembered how we’d scoffed at all the visitors
who paid and took the easy four wheel option as we’d strode down, then back up with
the arrogance of youth. So even Ollie had grown up a bit. Oh God, what if he
had really grown up, if he’d got a girlfriend, a wife? I mean lots of my
friends had, my sis had a husband and kids in tow, Holly had been married and
divorced, even Dane…But it was none of my business, was it?

I glanced at his
hand again, no ring. It was really none of my business, I wasn’t here to bother
him, to try and start anything up again. Hadn’t I said to Dane that it was a
daft going back, making the same old mistakes again?

“Have you got a
girlfriend, anyone special in your life? I mean, well, sorry it’s none of my
business, you don’t have to say.”

“No.” The
Landrover climbed the final steep section of the path effortlessly, emerging by
the gift shop at the top triumphantly and he pulled the handbrake on and
glanced at me, the look giving nothing away at all.

“No.” His fingers
had tightened on the steering wheel. “No, it isn’t any of your business
really.”

I dared to let my
gaze drift up, linger on the scar at his neck, avoid his direct gaze and settle
on the scar at his temple. Then I took a deep breath and let myself meet that
dark, knowing gaze of his.

“No, Sophie.” His
voice was oh so soft, but firm. No room for misunderstandings. “There’s no one
special. You?”

“No.” I looked
down at my hands twitching in my lap. It was a damned sight easier dealing with
other people’s problems, easy to see right from wrong, the logical way out of a
mess. But it was all grey and misty right here and now, just like the rest of
Cornwall. I closed my eyes for a moment and wished the magic back. But it
didn’t appear. I took a deep breath. “I don’t know that I could cope with
anyone else in my life right now, I’m a commitment-free zone.” He slipped the
four wheel drive back into gear and edged up to the main road.

“Which way?”

Now there was a
question and a half. I gave him the address of the cottage I was staying at and
he nodded, revving up as he turned right onto the main road and edged his way
through the deserted Tintagel and up a narrow, windy lane I didn’t know
existed. The steep high hedges towered above us, closing in and it could have
been dangerous proximity or a safe haven—I hadn’t got a clue which. He didn’t
say a word, and I didn’t want him to.

He pulled up
outside the cottage, turned off the engine and then there was just silence, a
big, wide, open silence. We both knew he was coming in. Step one, talk. Neither
of us had ever been the coward, not really, and we both knew that we couldn’t
run away from each other again. Not yet. At least not without a proper goodbye
this time.

We got out without
a word, walked around the corner of the cottage side by side to the front door.

And stopped dead.

He sat on the
doorstep. Sturdy and immovable with a bottle of wine in one hand, a carrier bag
in the other, and a smile on his face that dimmed the second he saw Ollie, or
more accurately the moment he registered the possessive hand Ollie had in the
small of my back.

Okay, this was
good and this was bad. I was relieved in a way that Will was there. Because it
stopped me avoiding the issue and just jumping Ollie’s bones. Bad because, well
now I felt bad.

Bad about Will
having his balloon pricked, and bad about the way Ollie’s hand had stiffened
against me. And I was a little pissed off. I had said I’d meet up with Will
later, and I really didn’t need to get involved with a guy who would be there
at every turn. A guy who might want more than a little bit of fun.

For a second he
looked hurt, that injured animal look flickered across his face and passed by
fairly quickly. I guess he was the type of guy who could take it or leave it.
Who would cope with whatever you threw at him. The ideal type of guy for a girl
who didn’t know what she wanted, for a girl open to persuasion.

“Coming in?” I
looked at Will, then looked at Ollie, and they both looked at each other.
Neither of them was prepared to give ground I suppose, but they both looked
fairly laid back about the situation.

“Sure.” Will
nodded then waved over at the pile of logs at the side of the cottage. “Shall I
bring some in to put on the wood stove?” Which could have been his way of
telling Ollie that he knew I had a wood stove, or could just have been helpful.

Ollie didn’t offer
to help, just pushed the front door open and walked in. Which could have been
his way of saying he wasn’t the hired help. Who knows? I stripped off my damp
coat and was glad that there was going be some heat to dry it out.

Ollie stretched
himself out in one of the armchairs and looked completely at home, like he
always had done wherever he was. He was that type of guy, so confident in his
own skin that you could put him anywhere. I suppose he reminded me in some way
of a cat, the way he’d have a sniff around, check out for danger, and then
settle himself on the most comfy seat in the house and chill. I was tempted to
settle on his knee, but that would have been plain weird with Will sorting out
the logs. So instead, I dithered. Great. Hopping from foot to foot like some
nervous kid while I had two of the hunkiest men in the county in my living
room. I could be decisive when I was sorting everyone else, harder when it was
me and I hadn’t quite worked out what I was after.

“Wine?”

I stopped dead,
all fidgeting suspended as the soft Cornish burr rolled across the room
straight at me, I’d been so busy thinking about what I was going to do next,
and studying his broad back and the way he got the wood burner going
effortlessly, that I had forgot about talking. There is something downright
sexy about a man doing man things. And I don’t mean messing with a gadget, I
mean chopping wood and building fires, rolling his muscles and stuff. All manly
and masterful.

“Sure.” I busied
about in the tiny kitchen and found three almost matching wine glasses that
looked suspiciously like they’d been liberated from a pub, and a corkscrew that
worked better than it looked like it would.

When I went back
in the two men looked happy enough with the situation, Will eyeing up the fire
and Ollie stretched out looking slightly bemused. I poured the wine and
wondered what happened next. Awkward silence?

“I’d just sit down
and have a drink if I were you.” The slightly dry tone made me colour up as
though I’d been caught thinking something I shouldn’t. Ollie had always had
that effect on me. Which was probably why he’d always found it so easy to get
under my defences— there just weren’t any where he was concerned.

“I, erm, brought
some food if you fancy something?” Will’s gaze briefly from his flame watching
to my face, which I could swear was giving out a similar amount of heat.

Oh, God, he really
had gone to town. Bottle of wine, logs for the fire and a cosy meal for two.
Which had turned into three. And it was sweet, and not what I’d expected from
my sturdy bullocksy boy.

“Well I’m game,
who’s cooking?” Ollie it seemed wasn’t at all fazed.

“No cooking.” Will
abandoned his post of chief log burner and went over to the bag that I vaguely
remembered seeing in his hand when we’d got back, and swung it in my direction.

It was good. Oven
fresh bread from the small bakery in the village with a smell that made you
hungry, and a crisp flaky crust and squishiness that made you want to bite into
it, cheese that I could have sworn still smelled of grass, a jar of chutney
with a local label and a bag of salad that must have done some air miles. I
held up the bag of mixed leaves and he shrugged, and then winked at me.

 “Just thought you
were probably used to rabbit food.” Sweet again, or sickly judging from the way
Ollie had raised an eyebrow. Which made me a bit cross, so I went over and
dropped a kiss on Will’s cheek and the way he squeezed my bum could have been
his way of reclaiming lost ground, or just because he liked my bum.

The food was good,
like fresh honest uncomplicated food always is. I just broke the bread into
chunks and chucked everything on to a big wooden bread board that was resident
on the kitchen counter and we sat, or should that be sprawled, on the floor in
front of the stove and picked at the food with our fingers and the heat of the
room warmed the red wine up nicely. And it heated me up more than nicely until
I had to strip off the mother-friendly jumper and toss it onto the chair behind
me. Which left a T-shirt that proclaimed loudly that I was ‘one hot chick’.
Okay, I admit, it was probably nearly as bad as wearing knickers with ‘spank
me’ on the back, or ‘unwrap me’ on the front. But I hadn’t known that I’d end
the day in front of a hot stove with two men, had I?

Will eyed up the
yellow chick that was set perky on my chest and grinned. “Is that hot as in,
you know, hot and sweaty or as in phwoar?”

Ollie’s
thigh-tingling chuckle wrapped around me as I giggled a bit self consciously.

“Well, what do you
think?” A couple of glasses of wine had done a good job of squashing my
honourable intentions.

“A bit of both I’d
say.” The chuckle had turned to throaty murmur right by my ear, warm breath
making me hotter. The cottage wasn’t that big, the living room even smaller, so
three people sprawled meant we were all near enough to touch. Ollie had one
elbow propped on the chair that I was leaning against, and Will’s muscled thigh
was so close to mine I could feel the heat from it.

I reached back to
pile my hair up on top of my head, and let some air circulate round my neck,
and Ollie caught my wrists above my head.

 “Messy bugger.” I
jumped when he reached out and caught the tomato juice that had dribbled onto
my chin with one elegant finger. The finger lingered over my lips and it was
just an automatic reaction to lick it clean, slowly, as I matched his dark
stare which seemed to hold almost a challenge.

“Very messy.” I
really jumped, and it would have been higher if Ollie hadn’t leaned forward to
run his tongue along the path that had been smeared with tomato juice just as
the cool wine hit the warmth of my bare stomach. A distant kind of shock
registered in my brain that Will had actually done that, dripped wine on my
bare midriff, and that the warm dampness of his mouth was now on my skin. But
it was a hazy distant kind of thought, because Ollie was circling my tongue
with his in a way that was playing havoc with my senses.

Will sucked at the
soft skin at my waist and I groaned into Ollie’s mouth, which he took as a sign
that this was good. His grip never eased on my wrists, but his free hand reached
down, under the top that had risen as I’d raised my arms, the top that had
risen further when Will had decided my stomach needed his attentions, right
under until he had my hard nipple between his finger and thumb. He pinched and
rolled making me squirm.

“Still not a fan
of lacy bras then?” I’d long since had the habit of discarding bras when I was
on holiday, and I’d decided that as I wasn’t at home, and I wasn’t at work, I
must be on holiday.